XVII.
The storm was wild enough, but of short duration, and it came to its end as suddenly as it had begun. As the black cloud departed from the sky, the darkness, which had been almost a solid inside the still-house, was pierced by certain lines of mild light coming through various chinks in the walls and roof. Our friends examined one another curiously, as if to be sure that it was not all a dream.
Cattleton found himself face to face with a demure-looking young man, whom he at once recognized as Harry Punner, a writer of delicious verses and editor of a rollicking humorous journal at New York.
“Hello, Hal! you here?” he cried. “Well how does it strike your funny bone? It insists upon appearing serious to me.”
“I’m smothering for a whiff of fresh air,” said Punner, in a very matter-of-fact tone. “Can’t we raise a window or something?”
“The only window visible to the naked eye,” said Cattleton, “is already raised higher than I can reach,” and he pointed to a square hole in the wall about seven and a-half feet above the ground and very near the roof.
Crane went about in the room remarking that the aroma floating in the air was the bouquet of the very purest and richest copper-distilled corn whisky and that if he could find it he was quite sure that a sip of it would prove very refreshing under the peculiar circumstances of the case, an observation which called forth from Mrs. Nancy Jones Black a withering temperance reprimand.
“As the presiding officer of the Woman’s Prohibition Promulgation Society I cannot let such a remark pass without condemning it. If this really is a liquor establishment I desire to be let out of it forthwith.”
“So do I!” exclaimed little Mrs. Philpot with great vehemence. “Open the door Mr. Hubbard, please.”
Hubbard went to the door and finding that it was constructed to open outwardly, gave it a shove with all his might. There was a short tussle and he staggered back.